


just a number in your mind

by skylights



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), James Bond (Movies), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: I found some scenes on my phone that I don't remember writing, I just really like the idea of Bond giving head okay, M/M, and then this, day 374384239: still have not watched Skyfall, is it edible?, judge me now, self-indulgent writing, what is plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-13
Updated: 2012-11-13
Packaged: 2017-11-18 13:56:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/561794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skylights/pseuds/skylights
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I’m a grown man, 007, not a teenage girl that you need to wine and dine.”</p><p>“And if I want to wine and dine you regardless?” Bond is a dark silhouette against the window, leaning against the glass. Q inexplicably feels something inside him shift, subtle yet axis-tipping in its enormity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	just a number in your mind

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Deutsch available: [Nur eine Zahl in deinem Kopf](https://archiveofourown.org/works/657140) by [eurydike](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eurydike/pseuds/eurydike)
  * Translation into 中文 available: [心之密称](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2433413) by [Go_MrCactus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Go_MrCactus/pseuds/Go_MrCactus)



> Also available in German [here](http://www.fanfiktion.de/s/50e88cd50000358c06814ff0) by [eurydike](http://archiveofourown.org/users/eurydike/pseuds/eurydike) :)

Q used to think that MI6 has all but taken the excitement out of espionage and intrigue, replaced it with sleep deprivation and a new-found appreciation for shirts that don’t need ironing. Q had liked it that way. Comfortable. Routine. Before all of this, Q had found stability in the almost clinical neatness of creation for destruction, the neat detachment that set him two paces away from the field.

No intentionally broken equipment that Q mourns over, no schedules turned on their heads to accommodate the wrong people and wrong reasons. Certainly no double-ohs sauntering in, all disruptive charm and calculated carelessness, hiding smiles like knives.

Now, Q paces his lab like it’s a prison cell, barking orders into his earpiece all the while. Bond is cocky and doesn’t take well to being told what to do, even if it could mean the hair-trigger difference between life and a messy death. Especially if it’s the hair-trigger difference between life and a messy death.

“007 you do _not_ have clearance yet.” It’s the third time Q has said this in ten minutes. There’s the unmistakable sound of a double tap to the chest, a riot of colours and sounds recorded in pixel-perfect clarity and then, a body bleeding out on the ground somewhere in Calcutta. Q sighs.

“Now was that so hard to give me clearance for?” Bond says with a hint of smugness in his voice and Q’s shoulders relax a fraction, even if he makes it a point to scowl at his screen.

“Call it in, 007, and we’ll put you on the next flight out. M wants to see you in the office the moment you land.”

  


* * *

  


It hadn’t been easy at the start. Even with memory softening the edges, Q knows its been an uphill battle if any, and they’re not even anywhere near the end yet. Bond is like some kind of tattered flag to be captured, the shadow of an ideal that has yet to be tamed. What Q will do with both at the end of all things, Q hasn’t the slightest idea. In a world where the only absolutes are the ones that have a recorded time of death, this is a strangely comforting thought.

Q still remembers Bond’s incredibly dirty double entendres, the quirk of his mouth when he realised Q wasn’t going to rise to the bait just that easily. Those few months had been a long study in patience and Q can still see the glint in Bond’s eyes when his fingers brush Q’s unnecessarily.

“Try to bring it back in one piece this time,” Q tells Bond in ice-cold tones and every last scrap of equipment comes back to him damaged beyond repair.

  


* * *

  


Besides Bond’s penchant for chaos, here’s another thing that Q remembers in startling clarity:

“We have a professional working relationship to maintain,” Q says and keeps his eyes trained on the ceiling, head thrown back and Adam’s apple bobbing as James drops to his knees and pulls Q’s trousers down to his ankles.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” James promises.

Q knows better than to believe field agents.

  


* * *

  


It’s not like Q can’t afford beluga caviar and Dom Perignon on his salary from saving the world, but what’s that saying again? About it being the thought that counts in the end?

“You must really want me in your bed,” Q laughs after his nth glass of the night. The champagne is cold and goes down far too easily. Outside, the city lights feel distant and Q can’t remember how Bond knows where he lives, doesn’t really want to dwell on the idea when Bond is sitting across him with the top two buttons of his dress shirt undone. Alcohol tolerance has never been a strong point of Q’s, even if Q can still reassemble any number of assault rifles while inebriated. “I’m a grown man, 007, not a teenage girl that you need to wine and dine.”

“And if I want to wine and dine you regardless?” Bond is a dark silhouette against the window, leaning against the glass. Q inexplicably feels something inside him shift, subtle yet axis-tipping in its enormity.

“Then I’ll have you know I prefer Chinese over Italian.”

Bond’s laugh is genuine. Q finds himself terrified beyond belief.

  


* * *

  


They fight as much as they fuck. Bond still seems adverse to the idea of saving R&D a few thousand pounds each mission and sometimes doesn’t even remember to bring home the pieces of his gear. Q still keeps hours that seem irregular even to Bond and has no qualms about hauling Bond’s sorry arse to M each time Bond doesn’t keep to the predetermined plan. 

Somehow, it all works.

  


* * *

  


Once, they go to the Swiss Alps. 

Bond begs terrible mobile service and practically kidnaps Q out of his flat an hour before the plane leaves. It’s a flimsy excuse that barely passes off as a reason, but somehow, Q finds himself setting up his workstation in the presidential suite of a ski lodge. This time around, Bond has to extract a great deal of information from a banker who’s currently on a skiing trip and then make his death look like an unfortunate accident on the slopes. Very run of the mill and hardly something that Q needs to babysit for, but Bond has the uncanny talent of making things sound far more dangerous than they seem to the right people.

“Try not to die,” Q tells Bond when Bond is getting ready to leave for the day. He barely looks up from the book he’s reading, a trashy looking thriller that Bond tries not to comment on because this is Q, sitting up in bed and reading in the early morning light with a cup of tea at his elbow. In one hour, he’ll have to be at his desk, making sure that MI6 receives every last scrap of information and Bond isn’t getting shot in the head. “You’re actually right about mobile reception being awful here, it might take a while to recover your body and I’m not very inclined to go traipsing in waist-deep snow because you don’t know stop from go.”

“Love you too,” Bond says dryly and Q turns a page.

  


* * *

  


Bond saunters back into the room just before nightfall, looking pleased with himself and quite, quite alive.

“Life, always so full of disappointments,” Q sighs and Bond’s cheek is cold when it brushes his, lips pressed just above the flutter of Q’s pulse in his neck. 

“I’ll try getting killed a little harder next time.”

“Don’t bother.”

Bond has cold hands from being out in the snow the whole day. Q feels a shudder run through him when Bond grips him by the hips, drags his teeth against the inside of Q’s thigh until Q is barely breathing from sheer want. Bond swallows Q down with barely a sound and Q rocks up into the wet heat of Bond’s mouth, hands finding purchase in the sheets as Bond tongues the underside of Q’s cock, pulling back in slow degrees before sinking back down again. It’s like dying in reverse.

“Good?” Bond murmurs, breath warm against the head of Q’s cock.

“Stop now and I will have you killed in your sleep.”

Bond knows a threat when he sees one, even if this one is unlikely to be carried out, so Bond wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and fits his tongue against Q’s slit until Q gives in, cursing vividly under his breath.

“Fuck,” Q whispers as he comes, Bond pressing his hands on either side of Q’s thighs to keep him still even as Q tries to arch off the bed. “ _Fuck_.” Bond is smiling when he looks up at Q, still kneeling between Q’s spread legs.

“That’s the general idea when two people are in the same bed, yes. Now lie back again and _don’t_ think of England.”

  


* * *

  


Bond leaves a message with MI6 about an impromptu holiday and tosses his mobile down a ravine after that, Q pretending not to notice when in truth, all he wants is to throw Bond down after it. This isn’t acceptance as much as it is resignation, like knowing one can never keep tea hot for long enough.

They move resorts. Higher up into the mountains where it’s colder and quieter, the rooms a little less glitzy. There, they spend three days subsisting on room service and the occasional trip outside because Q will rather die before admitting to himself that he spent most of his time in Switzerland on his back (and on some occasions, on all fours, on his side and up against various surfaces).

England is still standing when they return, even if Q has a bit of trouble himself.

  


* * *

  


It’s not all fun and games here in MI6, not when the ground gets pulled out from under your feet on an average of three times a week and put back together again within the same day. After Switzerland, there is Bosnia where Bond gets shot in the shoulder and Q spends two full minutes in furious silence before arranging for the proper medical supplies to be sent to Bond’s hotel room. After Bosnia, there is Jakarta and a pipe-bomb that leaves Bond with a jagged scar down the expanse of his back, a month-long grounding that gets kicked down to two and a half weeks because there’s something stirring in Shanghai.

There is copious amounts of caffeine and more stress than Q can shake a stick at, what begins as worry eventually growing into a grudging exasperation and constant hope that Bond returns more or less intact.

(And after Shanghai, Cape Town, Barcelona and St. Petersburg, there is New Orleans. Q remembers New Orleans as a dark room and a red haze, a burning in the back of his throat and heroin in his veins. Bond remembers New Orleans as sixty hours without sleep and the sick satisfaction of killing because he wants to. Neither makes it a point to compare notes.)

  


* * *

  


One day, Q will tell Bond his real name. Of course, Bond could probably find it out as easily as he can find the nearest Indian take-out restaurant, but some part of Q chooses to believe Bond hasn’t resorted to such just yet. In his head, Q imagines that Bond won’t treat it like the weakness that it is. Rather, Bond will hold it close, as if something precious, something to be said in the dark and into skin. Q will trust every part of himself to Bond then, from gunpowder-stained fingertips to the very walls of his heart.

(The heart: 2000 galleons of blood a day to 75 trillion cells through 60,000 miles of blood vessels and yet, still the weakest.)

Until then, this is only something Q knows Bond will follow down to the letter. Nothing more.

**Author's Note:**

> Self-indulgent. I love these two.


End file.
